memory of a memoray
by vapanalley
Summary: /Mary JanexPeter Parker/ Sometimes she wakes up to him calling another girl's name. He's never embarrassed because he knows that there's nothing she can hold against that other phantom figure.


_Memory of a Memoray_

Sometimes she wakes up to him calling another girl's name.

He's never embarrassed because he knows that there's nothing she can hold against that other phantom figure.

Gwen Stacy is dead, after all, and Mary Jane is the one who wraps her arms around Peter Parker and tells him to hush. It's Mary Jane who traces his scars, some of them new and some of them old, and whispers in his ear _I'm here._

The thing about first love is that it lingers, and like a scar it leaves marks.

He tells her about the dreams once.

It hadn't been an unbearably hot night that kept them both awake and sticky so that they would be forced to swap stories.

It hadn't been a sweet Sunday morning where she is greeted with breakfast in bed and Peter's sheepish smile and big blue eyes admitting to her that there had been someone else before her. Someone important. And what he had done to her.

It had been an afternoon in a coffee shop. It seems so many important conversations happen over coffee. Maybe it has something to do with how somber the drink is. Think about it. Here is this bitter concoction made just for you, so that you can stay awake, so that you can manage to run from your dreams for a little while longer.

Mary Jane drinks her cup of Joe with three packets of sugar and a good, unhealthy dollop of cream. By the time she's done stirring and takes her first sip, her cup of coffee is more the color of dark toffee than anything else.

Peter drinks his coffee black. The drink of sober individuals with not enough time for anything to mellow the biting taste. She thinks he might secretly relish in the unpleasantness of something so bitter and thick because he's under the impression he deserves it.

She remembers their first date and she remembers how long his fingers had been and how quickly he had reached for that first packet of sugar to pour into his cup of coffee and how his fingers, so dexterous and fine, had stopped so suddenly before pouring that packet of white crystals into his cup.

It's a memory in a memory now.

"Hey." He said that afternoon. Things had progressed since their first date.

"Hey, you. How's it going with the paper?" She asked as sunlight slathered its buttery self across their table for two. This was before they had moved in together and he had created a well worn space for himself on her mattress and imprinted his smell into her sheets.

"Alright. Things are pretty busy and the boss demands more pictures and better stories. The usual things, you know. But...Uh, I have something to tell you. I'm not sure how to start really."

"Don't be silly. You know you can talk to me about anything. You know that right? You know about me and I...I know about you."

"Yeah. Yeah"

And the story, unfolds like a lily, a flower of death, so beautiful and sad. She finishes her cup of coffee long before he finishes his story, told in a hushed voice and half into his cold cup of coffee. The coffee shop is mostly empty except for them and one or two other patrons. They're in a quiet corner, wood paneled walls muffling Peter's low voice even more.

The flash of deep jealousy and hatred comes as a surprise to Mary Jane. She had never thought of herself as the first girl, not when Peter was such a bright guy with that smile and those eyes and the _jokes_, but she hadn't thought that...

And sometimes she has to remind him that Gwen is gone. She makes sure that she pushes the shaker full of sugar towards Peter on mornings when they get to have breakfast together and Peter tries to down his coffee as dark as he can. It's all she can do. He is hers and she is his. What they have is special. What they have is sacred.

Theirs will not be a repeat performance. She won't allow it.

* * *

A/N: Summer games? Summer angst! Leave some words of love or hate or C&C. You can do it! Imaginary gold medals for all!


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